Saturday, May 5, 2012

All wars have been for gods

From the earliest times,
tribes fought for their tribal all-father or deity. The deity prodded his
followers to defeat others to establish his superiority. Gods have partitioned
the earth; each sect owing allegiance to a god carved out a certain portion of
the inhabited lands. Men, in turn, used gods to get enriched and rule
others (every king proclaimed himself as god’s representative thus usurping
divine right to subjugate the masses). Later, when organized religions were
established, they fought to establish the might of each other resulting in
terrible mutual losses and the fight still continues.

The followers of the
mythological religions which flourished in the Roman Empire persecuted the
early Christians and murdered thousands. When Christianity gained upper hand
(as the Roman emperor accepted it as the official religion) it became the
persecutor. The Inquisition courts of the Catholic Church threw thousands alive
into the dens of lions, burnt more in boiling oil and killed or torched
millions. Even scientists were not spared for upholding the truth (remember
Bruno and Galileo who were persecuted or burnt alive for rejecting foolishness
advocated by the Church). The Islamic conquerors killed innumerable
followers of the other religions and forcibly converted many others into Islam
at gun point. Nobody knows how many perished in the crusades waged
between Christians and Moslems! The crimson blood of the children of the oldest
religion, Judaism, gushed through the covered up canyons of many countries as
they upheld their faith in their Bible God. The Arab Israeli wars do not seem to end.

When one religion
disintegrated into a number of denominations, as did Christianity and Islam,
innumerable wars followed. The Anglo-French, Anglo-German wars and others of
Europe in the 18th and 19th were between the
protestant and catholic nations. It continued till the middle of the twentieth
century. In the latter half of the twentieth century we see wars becoming
common between the different of Islam. Continued war between Iran and
Iraq, the threat of a conflict between GCC nations and Iran emanate from the
animosity between Sunnis and Shiites. Sectarian Islamic warfare is spreading
wherever the sects are becoming powerful. Nations following Christianity have
conquered Islamic Afghanistan and Iraq killing or maiming millions for their
own motives!

Thousands commit suicide
today in the name of their god to murder millions of others who believe in
another god. Terror has become a real threat to the existence of man himself.
The echoes of bayonet charges and fusillades of terrorists across the borders
of different nations resound in deafening intensity. Meaningful harmony seems
to be almost impossible as one god’s demands look conflicting and contradictory
to another’s. Followers owe allegiance to their god and their group especially
in an emotionally charged context. Communal conflicts can arise any moment in
countries where different religions co-exist and become a full-fledged war